What we learned from the latest full council meeting in Sunderland
Coronavirus vaccines dominated business at last night’s (Wednesday, January 27) meeting of Sunderland City Council.
Tempers flared after UKIP representatives attempted to water down calls for councillors to avoid promoting anti-vax conspiracy theories, prompting the session to be briefly shut down at one point.
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Hide AdAnd council leader Graeme Miller claimed the Government was ‘entirely wrong’ to divert jabs away from the North East to areas struggling with their own roll out programmes.
Other highlights from the meeting, which was held by videolink and broadcast via YouTube, included:
An independent recommendation to boost the basic allowance for city councillors was rejected in favour of sticking with the current £8,369 payment, which has been unchanged since 2012 Bosses revealed a winter ‘hiccup’ had briefly left the city without enough drivers to man both bin wagons and gritters due to the coronavirus pandemic, but that this had been resolved A petition signed by 1,732 people calling for the Seaburn Tram Shelter to be preserved A promise to introduce more vehicle activated signs (VAS) to improve road safety in the city ‘as resources allow’ News that public toilets at the seafront, which have been closing at 4pm following police advice, will have their opening extended to 6pm from February 1 A prediction the council’s planned new HQ on the former Vaux brewery site would cut annual running costs, currently about £2.8 million a year at the existing Civic Centre A formal pledge to do more to ensure council partners and contractors are paying their fair share of tax, although this was boycotted by the opposition Liberal Democrat group, which claimed original proposals had been ‘watered down’
